101st medic receives Silver Star
February 6, 2004
 

Pvt. Dwayne Turner receives the Silver Star from Brig. Gen. Frank Helmick, assistant deputy chief of Staff (Operations), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

Pvt. Dwayne Turner, a combat medic assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, received a Silver Star Feb. 5 for providing life-saving medical care to 16 fellow soldiers when his unit came under a grenade and small arms attack in a suburb 30 miles south of Baghdad April 13.

Turner repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to provide life-saving medical treatment to wounded soldiers, despite being critically wounded.

Turner and two other medics from the 3-502nd Infantry were part of a work detail that came under attack from small arms fire and hand grenades as they unloaded supplies in a make-shift operations center.

“I just started assessing the situation, seeing who was hurt, giving them first aid, and pulling them into safety,” he said, downplaying his actions on that day.

Turner, who took shrapnel to his legs in the initial attack, was shot at least two times while administering first aid to the Soldiers.

“I didn’t realize I was shot,” he said. “A couple of times I heard bullets going by, but I thought they were just kicking up rocks on me.”

At one point during the attack, one of Turner’s fellow medics told him he was bleeding.

“Someone told me, ‘Doc Turner, Doc Turner, you’re bleeding.’ I looked down at my leg and saw I was bleeding, and kind of said “Oh hell, If I’m not dead yet, I guess I’m not dying.”

“Then I heard [the wounded] calling for medics,” Turner said, “and I realized I could let them continue to get hurt, and possibly die and not come home to their families, or I could do something about it.”